Phi-Brain: Season 1, Collection 1 Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

Phi-Brain: Season 1, Collection 1 Blu-ray Movie Review

Do you like puzzles?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 29, 2013

There’s something intrinsically fascinating to the human mind about puzzles, whether they be unsolved mathematical formulae, whodunits or something as relatively mundane as a Rubik’s Cube. Puzzle based stories are quite frequently formulated as detective stories, and Arthur Conan Doyle is often credited with introducing the idea of deductive reasoning into detective fiction courtesy of his many Sherlock Holmes outings. But the fact is many other authors have exploited that same power of the intellect, including everyone from Titanic victim Jacques Futrelle, whose Thinking Machine stories are models of intricate puzzle formulation, to Agatha Christie, who seemed to delight in developing not just insanely complex problems for her sleuths to solve, but also in offering an embarrassment of riches with regard to potential suspects (many with interconnected back stories) and of course red herrings. A lot of detective fiction has been built around murder, with Christie probably one of the more notable examples of an author who could seemingly come up with infinite ways to kill, and infinitive motives for the killing. There’s at the very least threatened death in droves running through Phi Brain: Puzzle of God, a rather interesting anime that evidently originally aired on a Japanese educational station, but murder isn’t really a focal point. The main character in Phi Brain: Puzzle of God is a kind of armchair detective named Kaito, a high school kid whose penchant for solving puzzles comes in handy when he and his best friend Nonoha find themselves in an intricate maze. The first episode sets Kaito up as an intuitive puzzle solver, but then goes a step further, when as a result for solving part of the maze puzzle Kaito is granted a “reward” of sorts in the form of a magical armband (hey, this is anime, what do you expect?) named Orpheus. In a kind of cheat that may annoy some viewers who are armchair sleuths, Orpheus is able to effect a kind of mind meld with Kaito to help him solve especially difficult puzzles. Phi Brain: Puzzle of God posits some fairly fun conundrums as it trundles along during its first season, but there really isn’t any major degree of suspense as it’s a virtual given that Kaito, who soon has a coterie of other puzzle solvers surrounding him, will either ferret out the answers himself or be able to do with a little prodding from his glowing piece of arm-wear.

Anyone who’s ever downloaded a puzzle app on their smart phone or in fact watched any given immunity challenge on Survivor may recognize at least some of the sorts of puzzles that are featured in Phi Brain: Puzzle of God. Aside from elements like the labyrinthine maze that is featured in the first episode (and frankly some subsequent ones), there are puzzles like the slide puzzles where you have to arrange a disconnected set of images into a recognizable picture, or a set of dots that have to be connected with a finite number of lines. But this is a double edged sword for the series. On the one hand, the puzzle element is something that is relatively unique and works to set Phi Brain: Puzzle of God apart from a glut of other anime. But the series doesn’t seem to have the courage to rely solely on that element to set it apart, and other elements of the show are fairly routine, including a sort of shōnen aspect that gets to be fairly predictable, and a completely rote subplot that has Kaito having a “secret identity” of sorts that a mysterious organization is out to exploit or even thwart.

Phi Brain: Puzzle of God also tends to devolve into a sort of summoning power anime, resonant of such iconic fare as Dragon Ball Z or even Yu-Gi-Oh!, though this series, despite some blatantly comedic elements, seems to want to take itself more seriously, especially with regard to some of Kaito’s back story, which gets doled out in dribs and drabs as this first arc of episodes goes along. Like any good would be superhero (which is what in effect Kaito turns out to be), he has some tragedy in his past, concerning that time honored trope in a lot of superhero iconography of some dastardly doings with regard to his parents. These elements are woven relatively well into the overall puzzle solving ambience of Phi Brain: Puzzle of God, but some may wish there had been less time spent on these aspects and more time devoted to creating more stupefying puzzles.

There are regular threats of death in virtually every episode so far in Phi Brain: Puzzle of God, and once the nefarious group (the titular Puzzle of God, in fact) starts its machinations with regard to Kaito, there’s a fair degree of suspense at times, but once again the series tends to diffuse that tension with sidebars, including lots of time spent on Kaito’s sidekick Nonoha, as well as kind of silly short form exercises that for example see Kaito losing his puzzle solving abilities. That gives Phi Brain: Puzzle of God a feeling of having been padded (to a certain extent, at least), once again halting forward momentum of the central plot arc.

Despite several minor missteps, however, Phi Brain: Puzzle of God turns out to be a remarkably entertaining anime a lot of the time. There’s a certain lunatic quality to some of the humor that is very appealing, and if the puzzles aren’t especially mind boggling, the fact that an anime is at least trying to present what might boil down to a pretty typical battle outing in at least a slightly different environment is commendable. It’s better to have tried and not to have completely succeeded, than not to have tried at all, as any puzzle solver worth their salt will tell you.

Phi-Brain: Season 1, Collection 1 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Phi Brain: Puzzle of God Collection 1 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Sentai Filmworks with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Perhaps surprisingly for such a recent vintage series, the animation style in Phi Brain isn't especially sleek looking and in fact tends to be kind of clunky and formulaic quite a bit of the time, which presents this high definition presentation with some built in problems. While some of the characters are reasonably well done (albeit again pretty rote looking at times), the backgrounds here tend not to have an overabundance of detail or even coloring. That said, line detail is reasonably crisp and sharp, and smaller elements, like Kaito's "Sideshow Bob"-esque hair, often look quite good. Overall, though, this is a fairly soft looking enterprise that may surprise some viewers at least a little bit (and not in a good way).

Phi-Brain: Season 1, Collection 1 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Phi Brain: Puzzle of God Collection 1 features lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mixes in both English and Japanese. The mixes here are virtually identical save for the languages. The series has a lot of dialogue and in that regard these 2.0 mixes suffice very well, with everything cleanly and clearly presented. Some might have wished for surround mixes in some of the puzzle scenes, especially in the maze segments, which might have benefited from panning effects and more fulsome LFE when trap doors and the like open. Fidelity is excellent and dynamic range is reasonably wide.

Phi-Brain: Season 1, Collection 1 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Clean Opening Animation (1080p; 1:32)


• Clean Closing Animation (1080p; 1:32)


• Trailers for other Sentai Filmworks Releases

Phi-Brain: Season 1, Collection 1 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The good news is that Phi Brain: Puzzle of God Collection 1 picked up considerable steam as it went along through this first arc of episodes. The bad news is that it still took quite a few episodes to really start developing its characters and the underlying plot, with too many side trips down mazes that had dead ends. Still, this show has to be given kudos for trying something rather unusual, so I'm willing to cut it some slack until I see how things play out in subsequent outings. This Blu-ray offers good if not spectacular looking video and fine audio. Recommended.